Thanks So Much for a Great Season, Everybody!

Let’s do it again next year...

END OF SEASON SPECTACULAR

This year’s end of season games played out about as perfectly as one could ask for. The Wildcard games were wild indeed, and super-close. The Championship games were juicy and decisive. And the Hyperbowl was nothing less than hyper. The Festival of losers was even riveting, with an thrilling happy ending.

Wild-Cards for Hope: MS Shakedown (4) vs. Ze French Revenge (3)

This tale of two titans was as exciting as they come. Hurricane Dan delivered a big, wet French kiss down on Stan Luchka Field, submerging the bases under roiling brown water. The Shakedown and The Revenge stepped through the stormy looking glass into this mud-tasia, exchanging runs and swappin’ howls. The Mississippi gang bundled themselves up in garbage bags (fearless of the inevitable “white trash” jokes), while the French ensemble just stripped down to their chest hair. It was a close game – just a one run difference – enough for the Ze French to say “adieu”. Jusqu’á la prochaine fois.

Wild-Cards for Change: Scurvy Dog (4) vs. Muscle Justice (2)

This year’s virgin team, Muscle Justice, did exactly what new teams should do in the PKL: make their fucking presence known! Loudly! Led by PKL rockstar, Cecily Debusker, the Justice muscled their way though a great season, through the 3-way Xtreme deathmatch (Wk 11), and through the muck and mud of an amazing Wildcard game. But what team is better equipped to weather MJ’s tidal wave of spunk than Scurvy Dog. The storm-tossed teams battled in another wonderfully close game. Maybe Muscle Justice flew too close to the sun in their charter season; they finished the game just a couple runs down. Scurvy Dogs sail through to the Division finals. Muscle Justice... don’t stop believin’.

Championship for Hope: MS Shakedown (7) vs. CBP (1)

For the past six seasons, Cunning Baffling Powerful has stood out above all the rest, despite the fact that the rest of us were much, much higher. The mighty CBP strode confidently, in a nice straight line, into another all-too-familiar Championship Saturday. But this year they did not expect what the Shakedown like to call a “Mississippi Intervention”. Maybe it was the pouring rain that baffled the driest team in the league. CBP had a long way to fall, losing this game by six runs (dang!). Papa Bear Thurgood – Uncle Dwayne – proved himself more mud-flap than man as he led the charge in the first big sloppy upset of the day. The Shakedown have been banging on the championship door with their bangin’ hand for three years now, and finally got their answer. But don’t expect CBP to act all defeated in 2010. They have more championshipness in their pinky-toe than most of us have in our giant, swollen liver.

Championship for Change: Scurvy Dog (5) vs. Holy Rollers (1)

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. – Matthew 7:27

For as long as most of us can remember, The Holy Rollers has had Dominion over victory in the PKL. The Holy dragged the Scurvy into the second inquisition in as many weeks. But this week the heathens would repel the devout, shaking the foundations of faith we’ve had of the infallibility of Rollers. And it was the kind of rough and decisive game you love to see. Great plays and greater runs from both teams. But I should have augured the limp hat of Pope Vilicus XIII as a harbinger of their impending doom. The Dogs win their second of the day, somehow emerging cleaner than when they started, and set a course for Mississippi. The Holy Rollers will spend the off-season repenting, flagellating and communing once more with the divine.

Festival of Losers: The Stilettos (2) vs. Los Untouchables (3)

Two of the older franchises still standing in the PKL – Stilettos and Los Untouchiballes (UntouchiballicA, East Side Blue Bloods, Fabulous Untouchiballs) – swaggered back together like forlorned high school sweethearts hooking up in a cheap motel after 20 years and 3 bad marriages. At some point during this high energy mud wrestling match and south-of-the-border sweat-fest, an actual kickball game broke out... barely. This might be the lowest scoring game in Festival of Losers history, if not league history. I wouldn’t believe it if I weren’t actually on the playing field during the game, but the Stilettos held the former Freedum Division Champion Untouchiballs to a single run until the bottom of the fifth! If it weren’t for the Stiletto tradition of always kicking first, and therefore giving away home-field advantage, this game might have been the third titanic upset of the day. But the Luchadors put up a pair in the bitter end, and the lovely ladies were once again taken down by the ‘Balls with a come-from-behind conquest. For the fourth straight year these Stilettos girls have been punctuating the end-of-season with their own brand of dirty adult recreational ballet. This years may have been the dirtiest.

HyperBowl™ World Championships: MS Shakedown (7) vs. Scurvy Dog (4)

And to think: just two seasons ago the forebears of the Scurvy Dogs – The Green Barbarians – were playing in the Festival of Losers. How the PKL tides have turned. And the Mississippi Shakedown had finally climbed their way to the top of the PKL telephone pole – that pair of dangling champion shoes just an arm’s reach and 50,000 volts away. Both teams had played two games already today. The Dogs’ tunics and leggings were miraculously spotless despite heavy play. And the Shakedown, after 5 solid hours of sliding through mud, were cleaner than they were when they showed up that morning.

After two bridesmaid seasons, the Shakedown was desperate to rewrite the kickball history books. And “Win” is a heck-of-a lot easier to spell than “Defeat”. The Scurvy Dogs were gunning for greatness after eyeing the verdant shores of kickball championship in last year’s finals, only to be scuttled by the Gods.

Both teams played pristine kickball with throngs of fans huddled under rain shelters. It was late in the day, and I was standing in my underwear next to a stack of Narragansett cases. I remember screaming “Tater” at the top of my lungs – the rest is hazy. By the end, the blood-thirsty pirates went down to the mud-thirsty hicks.

Your new Providence Kickball League World Champions: The Mississippi Shakedown (Ain’t no lie)

Note from Slam Dixon:

It’s been such an awesome season. I regret not being able to play or announce, or even watch, as much as I would have liked this year. I’d want to thank all of the folks that helped out in the Eagle’s Nest all season. Bring your big mouths next year – you’ll be more than welcome.